THE GARDEN OF CATASTROPHY

The Garden Of Catastrophy

This work was comissioned by the 24th Biennale Of Sydney - Ten Thousand Suns 2024

This work was supported by Phileas - the Austrian Office for Contemporary art in Vienna

and Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

Vienna 2024

Misspelling "catastrophy" with the letter Y is my intention to emphasize the raw feeling of the very last moment before death. I came up with this alteration in order to impulsively materialize the word "catastrophy" for myself before I started to draw. The Y is a dysfunction, a discomfort that I want to implement in the work. Thus, the aesthetics of my drawings are permanently broken. I don't want to aestheticize the concept of dying; on the contrary, I am looking for impulses that strengthen and support my perception of death. I don't aim to please anyone with skills and beauty; instead, I incorporate a flaw that is crucial for precisely telling my own stories. Failure holds significant value, and I intend to consistently highlight it through my work.

In my garden, disaster is imminent when darkness casts outlines on the Deadly Nightshade fruits. Their shape and color remind me of the rot I fear. Bitter and cruel taste leaves a memory that remains when I imagine garden. Here, the fear of uncertain darkness persists. I attempt to relive this experience through detailed drawings. This repetition helps me engage with my instinctive thinking, and this drawing process has become my obsession. I don’t want to capture a traumatic experience; rather, this work is an integral part of retelling historical oppression and pain, embodying the idea of existence afterward.

In the large-format drawings, I leave plenty of empty space to explore the moment before death and contemplate how we can remain productive despite our physical existence. A fraction of a second transforms into a visual image, offering an insight into how we ponder our place in the garden of catastrophy and become a meaningful part of it. The earth, our friend, remembers without judgment, storing our bodies within her guts. After us, our bodies generate a delicious humus that nourishes fellow insects. Our corporeality provides new nutrition for our friends ladybugs, bees, and flies. They use these tools of knowledge to construct new spaces of kinship.